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Friends remember man shot, killed in apartment complex

CHARLOTTE, NC (FOX 46 WJZY) - Stephen Giles an avid boxer and father of four was shot and killed on Jones St. Wednesday night. Police were called to the scene in Lakewood just before midnight, they say Giles was pronounced dead at the scene.

FOX 46 spoke with several people who knew Giles and they all describe him as a positive, light-hearted guy who was always motivating and encouraging others and had a fierce love for his children.

“About maybe 9:30 he said that he was gonna go prepare for tomorrow and he looked at me and said, ‘get ready for class’. We were partnering together, he was getting ready to commit his Thursdays to help me teach my classes,” said Deborah Greene.

Giles recently went back to school and was going to fight his first pro boxing match in May. “He was very happy that he had just made pro. He was ready, very excited,” said Greene.

Giles was a member of the Charlotte Boxing Academy and trained at Revolution Park Sports Academy. “He might’ve been champion one day if he’d still been here,” said Giles’ trainer, Leone Moffett Sr.

Roderick Peart met Giles at the gym and said, “He was a good friend, a great father, a good role model out here.”

Greene and Giles partnered together to teach a fitness class. She was posting a reminder about the first class on social media when she learned he’d died. “For me to teach today is gonna be really hard because I’m waiting for him to come through the door. So it’s, it’s really hard,” she said.

Police canvassed the area near Jones St. and Grant St. where Giles was shot but, no arrests have been made. Friends of Giles say the senseless violence hits close to home.

“You don’t think it’s going to happen to anybody. He wasn’t one of the ones that I would have thought, not from what I knew about him, that anything like that tragic would’ve happened to him,” said Leslie McNamara.

“I’m still in shock. He was a very genuine person and you’re not going to meet too many people like that every day,” said Greene.

Mark Bearded was Greene’s Boxing coach and said, “I was shocked absolutely shocked and sad about it too.” He described Giles as a skilled boxer and said he never used his skills to intimidate or bully others. Instead he would take time to teach new and younger boxers what he could.

The Charlotte Boxing Academy is collecting money to donate to Giles’ family. Anyone with information about this case is asked to call Crimestoppers.